


Everytime You Go

by fireroasted



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28808550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireroasted/pseuds/fireroasted
Summary: Beca and Chloe met in high school. They spend fifteen years learning to love.Stacie and Aubrey met in college. They spend a decade learning to trust.This is the story of two destined pairs and their journey through love, life, and courage.
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell, Stacie Conrad/Aubrey Posen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 54





	1. Beca and Chloe

**Author's Note:**

> All dashes in this story are intentional. 
> 
> While this is a two-shot and you do not need to read both chapters to get the full story, the Staubrey chapter provides some background to the Bechloe story, so please give the pair a chance!

**Beca**

She slips through the back door of the classroom. Late again, but nobody notices. It takes another ten minutes for even the teacher to catch her eye. He sighs quietly, then picks up where he left off in the textbook like she’s a fly dipped into his coffee. Everyone else is either scrolling through their phone in their lap or dozing off. Beca doesn’t pull her earbuds out; doesn’t even unzip her backpack—there’s no point. She drums her fingers on the bench to the mellow beat of her latest creation and wonders why anyone would give two fucks about chemistry to begin with. More importantly, her eyes slide toward Chloe Beale—back straight, a fluffy pink pen in hand and her tongue poking ever so slightly between her lips as her eyes flicker purposefully between the teacher and the textbook—she wonders why somebody like _her_ bothers trying at all when she can have the whole world and then some. Two weeks ago, Beca begrudgingly dragged herself to school when her father threatened to drag her himself by the scruff of her neck. On that day, she learned that perfect princess Chloe Beale has been sharing her bench since the beginning of the semester. It’s a situation she’s sure isn’t ideal as the best and worst of the class—she almost pities Chloe. A week and a half ago, the teacher may have foolishly hoped that Chloe would inspired Beca to be…well, better. A week and a half ago, Chloe might have even tried a couple of times if her scowling didn’t put her off. Beca rests her chin in her hand and shifts her gaze out the window when she catches a glance of blue cast her way. After all, Chloe Beale is an ideal wrapped in beauty and honey, but even she can recognize a lost cause when she sees one. Beca wants to laugh at the same time as she wants to cry at the way her heart races at the sight of Chloe every morning—if only she knew that a lost cause is the only reason Beca comes to class at all.

-

-

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**Chloe**

Her breath catches in her throat when Beca ambles in as it always does. Her hair is wild, freshly out of bed, and she wants to run her hands through it so badly that her fist clenches beneath the table. She notices her watching the room, and she wonders what she sees. The teacher’s words, the world around her—everything bounces off her like raindrops on an umbrella whenever Beca enters a room. Their eyes meet, but she sees right past her and out the window behind her. Chloe’s heart drops. Two weeks ago, it felt like a dream to learn that the empty seat beside her belonged to Beca Mitchell this entire time. Beca—the girl who has haunted her imagination ever since she transferred in last year—sophomore year—with her earrings and her ripped jeans. She is a mystery, an elusive creature who manages to stay hidden from the world yet fill the entirety of Chloe’s at the same time. Chloe’s friends respond with an inevitable, “Who?” whenever she brings her up, and it baffles her how nobody seems to notice someone as beautiful as Beca. She doesn’t mind—she holds Beca in her heart instead like a heaven-sent secret just for her. The morning sun filters through the window and casts a golden glow onto Beca’s blue eyes at just the right light, and she can’t look away. She means to say hello—means to flash her a smile and find the nerve to say anything at all. She grips her pen tight, palm sweaty against the pink fabric wrapped around her pen. By the time she finds the words, the moment is gone. Beca turns to her, as if sensing her panic, and she drops her gaze to her textbook, the tiny black and white letters swimming before her eyes as her heart rattles against her chest. They say proximity goes hand-in-hand with fondness, but Chloe has only ever known how to admire Beca from afar. From the corner of her eye, she sees Beca’s fingers tap to an invisible rhythm in her ears, enshrouded in her own world. There’s a hint of a smile as she closes her eyes, and _god_ she isn’t going to survive.

-

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**Beca**

It’s the last day of the semester and all she can think about is the Launchpad she finally scrounged up enough money from her part-time job at the record store to buy. She’d seriously contemplated ditching school and sneaking past her step-monster to return to the sanctuary of her bedroom, but one selfish thought persisted. Her last morning with Chloe Beale. It doesn’t matter in the long run—she knows how social hierarchies work—but she’d miraculously passed the course, and if she could thank her without being the creepiest weirdo who never spoke to her, she probably would. She doesn’t believe that proximity to Chloe alone makes her better. No, she has two feet planted firmly in reality and a traitorous heart to prove she doesn’t need anyone to hold power over her. _Especially_ a girl like Chloe Beale. So, she isn’t prepared for what happens when reality takes the form of a scrap of pink paper sliding across the bench in front of her, and Chloe’s perfect, looping handwriting asking her to meet her after school.

-

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**Chloe**

On the last day of the semester, Beca sits down next to Chloe in a red leather jacket that short-circuits her brain. That’s the only explanation she can think of for the impulsive decision to rip a page from an old syllabus and write the first full sentence either of them has ever spoken to one another. Panic fills her as soon as Beca looks back at her with her incredible eyes, her brow raised in a way that is so utterly, unfairly attractive, bordering on cruel—Chloe doesn’t think her heart will ever beat normally ever again. But she agrees, and hours later, they’re in the library. Chloe pulls her behind a dusty shelf of old encyclopedias without a plan. All she has is pent-up courage, and it’s a surprise to them both when she presses Beca against the shelf and kisses her like she was put on this earth to do nothing else.

**Beca**

The rest of junior year flies in between those shelves. For four glorious months, it’s an unspoken agreement that they keep each other a secret, a secret neither has the courage to define. All Beca knows is the pure elation of seeing Chloe smile, knowing she’d put it there by simply existing. It’s addictive, this affection she doesn’t deserve. She lets it be, because even when they’re sitting on the floor tethered only by Beca’s earphones split between them, Chloe sets her soul on fire. And because she’s known all along that it isn’t meant to last. Her father is getting transferred, and she, on their last day together in that library, plays her a final song and says goodbye.

-

-

-

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**Chloe**

She is a marionette all through senior year, pulled by the strings of expectation. She dates local boys voraciously, manufacturing joy for anybody willing to see her choke it down. Deep down, she is angry—Beca didn’t have to say goodbye. Not so completely. She’s only eight time zones away in Cambridge, likely surrounded by beautiful British girls with their beautiful English accents, and it makes no sense that she’s hurting herself to hurt a girl eight hours in the future—always eight hours out of reach. A girl who has probably moved on. Chloe lays in her bed like she does on more nights than she’d like to admit and pulls her headphones over her ears. She sinks into Beca’s parting gift, a melancholic remix of “Just a Dream,” and lets it break her heart and put it back together over and over again.

-

-

-

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**Beca**

Beca hates England. Nothing reminds her of Chloe. Inevitably, everything reminds her of Chloe. She ditches her father and step-monster at the first opportunity for her mother, who welcomes her home with open arms and a free college education courtesy of her recent tenure at Barden University. She tells her stubborn heart to move on—she was never going to make Chloe happy for long. Her mother tells her to follow her heart as she’s perusing through her program options. All her heart wants is to go back to Chloe and give her a different song, as if it could rewrite their future. She tells her mother she wants to pursue music in LA. Her mother chuckles, shakes her head and emphasizes the free university education. She suggests literature instead: “Sometimes, all you need is perspective,” she tells her, patting on her knee like it has been decided. Beca sighs. At least she has an internship to look forward to. Still, she wonders where Chloe is now. She wonders what she’s doing, what she’s feeling. She wonders what she thinks of her now, and whether she’ll ever stop regretting the way she left. Beca runs her eyes across the Barden University logo across the glossy pages. Perhaps this was always the way the universe intended. Here, she hopes, she’ll find it in herself to embrace this new beginning. 

-

-

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**Chloe**

When she steps onto the quad for the first time, she takes in the buzz of activity all around her. A girl to her left balances on a taut rope between two trees while a guy to her right hurls a football at a friend in the distance. There are friends laughing and lounging on the grass and lovers whispering in each other’s ear. She grins all the way to her first class as if she could feel the joy and excitement of all these strangers pulsing in her heart. She squares her shoulders as she walks into her first lecture hall and scans the room for her new beginning. Dauntingly, the massive room has hundreds of faces, and her heart still skips every time she passes by a specific shade of brunette. She settles next to a green-eyes blonde who seems, with her notebook and two pens set out neatly in front of her and her hands folded as she eagerly waits for the lecture to start, the opposite of Beca in every way. Chloe smiles and introduces herself, holding out a hand. Aubrey, the girl replies with professional polish, as if she’d rehearsed all her life for this moment. She takes her hand and edges into Chloe’s world with a smile. Excitement blossoms at the potential in Aubrey’s warm hand, but soon dwindles over the next few weeks when Chloe very quickly realizes with dismay that Aubrey is making herself at home in an entirely different compartment in her heart. Somewhere adjacent to the void Beca left behind. She’s thankful nonetheless when Aubrey is there to hold her hair back whenever she recklessly attempts to fill that hole with almost anyone else. The first year passes in a haze of alcohol, boys, and Russian literature, and every time she climbs onto the lap of a half-naked stranger, every time she wraps herself around them and kisses lips that don’t fit hers the way she wants them to, the void seems to grow and grow. She’s put on academic probation by the end of the year and it devastates her. Her parents call to let her feel the immense weight of their disappointment, and as she later cries into Aubrey’s shoulder, she begs her not to let Beca keep hurting her. She regrets the words as soon as she says them, but Aubrey is combing through her hair with her fingers so soothingly and shame keeps her mouth silent so bitterly. What difference does it make, she foolishly thinks, when the scapegoat is millions of miles away, never to return.

-

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**Beca**

Beca feels a rush of air sweep out from under her, then a flash of a banner overhead. The campus radio station’s white letters blur in her vision and her heart flies up through her throat as she anticipates the hard ground below. A voice calls out and catches her, suspending her for a moment when all she sees is the sky and the flash of red in her memory. She turns stiffly to Stacie, who tips her chair back upright. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she tells her. Beca shakes her head. She’s grateful Stacie volunteered her charms to draw in new interns for the station—she’s grateful to Stacie for a lot of things, especially single-handedly pulling her by the hair through the last two years of school, but she isn’t ready to open that particular door to her past. Beca looks out at the shuffling crowd beyond her booth—gone. Perhaps she did see a ghost. A ghost who so rudely barged through Beca’s locked door with just an illusion of a glance. Beca turns to Stacie with a grin and reassures her that she’s okay. Stacie ruffles her hair and opens her mouth, but whatever she is about to say falls to the wind when Beca hears her name in that painfully familiar cadence. Every hair stands on end when she sees Chloe again. Her auburn hair is longer, curled beautifully against the curve of her shoulder. She’s a little older, her make-up a little finer, and her eyes—even on this gorgeous, sunny day, still puts the sky to shame. She isn’t smiling—she hasn’t seen her smile since they were on the cusp of seventeen, hundreds upon hundreds of days ago in that dusty library. Fear bobs in Beca’s throat when Chloe’s name drops from her lips like a prayer. For long seconds, they simply stare. A blond woman beside her glares—she sees Stacie rise from her seat in her peripheral. Chloe shifts uncomfortably, like she doesn’t know whether to stay or go. It’s been so long, and she’s put her through so much. There are a million things Beca could say to keep her at a distance—keep her safe from the destruction in her wake. There are a million and one reasons why Beca doesn’t deserve any more of her time, but when Chloe casts a wary glance at Stacie and turns to go, her heart reminds her of the years she’s dreamt of this moment and propels her out of her chair and to her feet. Before her brain can catch up and reign back both courage and reason, she leaps over the table, sending a tower of flyers fluttering around her. She reaches for her hand and every inch of her sings when they touch. Selfishly, she holds onto Chloe’s wide, bewildered eyes when she whispers: “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

-

**Chloe**

Before that day at the Activities Fair, the only thing on Chloe’s mind was her study abroad application waiting for approval. She’d worked harder than she ever had to get back into her parents’ blessings, pulling out of probation and into the Honours program. Before that day at the Activities Fair, the only thing she thought she wanted was to study abroad in Saint Petersburg where she could bask in the world through Dostoyevsky’s eyes. As much as she loved Shakespeare and Austen and the Brontë sisters, England is a bruise that was never going to fade—or so she thought. This entire time, they’ve been orbiting the same spheres, passing each other by in a supercut of the last two years, spanning across the time and space. Over the first cup of coffee Beca buys for her, Chloe learns there must’ve been at least several parties where Beca DJ’d part-time and Chloe was too drunk to remember more than flashing lights, missing each other by _that_ much. They’ve even taken the same classes with the same professors, albeit on alternating days of the week. For a time, Beca studied literature—her first year filled with the same books. Now, she learns over their second cup of coffee that same week, she is in philosophy, preferring the directness of nihilistic texts to the broad metaphors of Conrad and Kafka. “But music will always be my first love,” Beca says, smiling shyly over the rim of her mug. “And you never forget your first love.” Her eyes bore into Chloe’s, and her heart takes flight.

**Beca**

Beca never expected one invitation to coffee to turn into her happiest year at Barden University. She never expected to fit herself back into Chloe’s life so freely—so easily—under the open air of the campus, but Chloe pulls her in and for once, the current isn’t against them. They float along blissfully, the void in her heart shrinking a little every day to accommodate Chloe’s growing home. Coffee dates evolve into lunch, dinner, late-night cramming, and frequent sleepovers, punctuated by little touches and secret kisses, and moments they don’t dare name. By Halloween, they give each other everything. By Christmas, Beca impulsively pours an entire paycheque into an alexandrite ring that, in a certain light, shines the colour of Chloe’s eyes—she keeps it in her pocket everywhere she goes, but never quite finds the courage or the occasion to give it to her. By Easter, they are as much a part of each other as anything else. But come September, Chloe will be eight hours away in St. Petersburg, and perhaps she deserves that. So, she strokes the velvet case with the pad of her thumb and tucks it away.

-

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**Chloe**

Chloe loves Saint Petersburg. She makes a group of wonderful friends from all over the world. Her classes are challenging—fulfilling, and the city is beautiful. She misses Beca greatly. For the first two months, they talk almost every night, but slowly, their schedules slip and slide all around each other. Slowly, let’s talk tonight turn into maybe tomorrows. Invitations to parties, concerts, and adventures pile up alongside Beca’s growing responsibilities at her internship with a local label. Night and day melds, and the distance feels insurmountably immense.

-

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**Beca**

Beca has never been one for grand gestures, but she hates the way they’ve become, hates the time and distance burrowing between them. To overcome their past just to be defeated by eight future hours—she can’t stand it. She gets on a plane, and surprises Chloe in Saint Petersburg in her dorm. She meets her friends, sees her life, loves her entirely behind closed doors. They’re on a boat, gliding along the the canals of Saint Petersburg against the backdrop of the glittering city lights at night time when Beca says “I love you” for the first time. Chloe kisses her deeply, and they make love all through the night. It’s an orchestra of sweetness, passion, and fear, and Beca is brought through heaven’s gates over and over. But even when her name falls onto Chloe’s lips in the throes of passion, all she hears are the gaps where whispered love should be. Chloe never says it back. As Beca stares blankly out the window on her flight home, she rolls the velvet box absently in her hand. When she finds the courage to open the box, she stares into the alexandrite like it’s a mirrored portal into Chloe’s eyes. A dull, familiar ache gnaws at her chest, and a tear falls, disappearing into the fabric of the cushion before she realizes she’s crying. This ring, she realizes then, is an expectation built on quicksand, and she is going to ruin them both if it ever sees the light of day. So, she does the only thing she knows to be right and closes the box for the very last time.

-

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**Chloe**

Things feel different when she comes home for her final year. She doesn’t notice it at first, but perhaps she’s always known that the night on the canal, the happiest night in her life and the one night she will later spend years regretting, would change things. No, there are more immediate things as graduation year starts to loom. She starts seeing less and less of Aubrey, who is on the fast track to Harvard Law. She starts seeing less and less of Beca, who is burning herself out at both ends to get her name out across the country. She realizes first that she’s been dragging behind her friends for years, lost in the ambition of others while she hovered in place. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, or why she’s doing any of this at all. One doubt leads to another: she misses Beca more often than she sees her, and though she knows how she feels, has known for a long time how she feels, the words fill her mouth like a broken cork. The fear of coming up short, of losing Beca, of being left behind, of falling back into old habits—it has always been too great. She tells herself that if she doesn’t say the words, it won’t hurt as much, and yet here she is, watching Beca silently dress before her, so close and so far away. She turns to her with that restrained, little smile that slowly chips away at her heart, and leans over to kiss her on the cheek. She’ll see her in a few days, but every goodbye sinks into her, growing more final each time. When Beca’s last footstep echoes away, Chloe curls into herself, closes her eyes, and lets her fears feast.

-

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**Beca**

Los Angeles calls early to whisk her away. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, and with Stacie already miles away at MIT, she has no reason to stay. She does—of course she does—that dull ache returns every time she thinks of Chloe. Beca has never considered herself a romantic, but she never thought loving someone so completely could be so hard. She’s heard enough songs to understand the emotional journey of love, but the reality of it is a mountain she’s too weak to climb—the reality of never hearing those words echoed back and to feeling them burrow and fester deep inside her. She meets Chloe one last time in the quad—one look in her eyes, and she knows. She dredges her final goodbye from deep within, and she doesn’t cry. It feels like cutting off her own arm and still she holds back her tears. As they walk away from each other that day, Beca forces her eyes forward. Forward into a new place, a new life. A shiny future with her name in the lights. Inside, everything breaks.

-

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**Chloe**

Chloe is alone at graduation. Aubrey calls from her new dorm in Harvard to congratulate her, having left weeks ago to settle in and get a head-start on her new life. Her parents are there, older than she remembers them being. She watches the pride on their faces as she crosses the stage—this too looks different than what she remembers. She wants to laugh—they don’t even know what they’re proud of.

-

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**Beca**

Beca is a star. She’s been a star for a while, realizing only when she finally accepts that the catharsis she’s been waiting for isn’t coming.

She’s been working non-stop for almost a decade, establishing herself in the industry and wearing her body and soul down to nothing. She feels like Atlas, the weight of it all only amplified by the eyes tracking her climb. After Chloe, there was Jesse. After Jesse, followed a string of nameless faces, vultures who pulled at her name and status and money in exchange for their bodies. She let them—for so long, she let them—but now she’s tired. As her plane descends in Boston, she stares out the window, remembering the time she sat in this spot with a velvet box in her hand. She remembers the blue-green gem, and how much it reminded her of Chloe’s eyes when the light caught the blue just right.

Chloe.

Fifteen years, and it’s still Chloe. It has been and always will be—she’s come to terms with it over the years. Even if, against all odds, she falls in love again, she will never love anyone the way she loves her.

She hugs Stacie at the airport, and she can’t believe she’s getting married. They meet once a year, talk a little more often, and still the news hits her like a ton of bricks. The only thing that hits harder is a picture of her fiancée: blonde hair and familiar green eyes—she’s more than familiar with the way it glares every time she sees them.

Her heart has been racing since she received Stacie’s invitation in the mail. Those green eyes mean only one thing to Beca.

“Hungry?” Stacie asks as she throws Beca’s suitcase into the back seat of her shiny new Wrangler.

“Starving.”

“Good, because we’re getting brunch—my treat, of course. For my maid of honour.”

They sit down at brunch, in wicker chairs on a sunny patio. They fall into rhythm quickly and with ease, and it’s as if no time has passed at all. Beca breathes, light as a feather as she peruses the menu, chuckling at Stacie’s endless supply of insane stories. For the first time in years, she feels herself again.

“Excuse me,” a timid voice asks. Beca turns and smiles at a girl holding out napkin and a pen with shaking hands. She says hello, signs her name, and thanks her for listening. It isn’t often that she is recognized under the shadow of far bigger names she collaborates with, but often enough that she’s learned how to not scare people away.

Stacie watches, bemused and impressed. “As I live and breathe, Beca Mitchell, where is that scowling lone wolf I fell in love with all those years ago?” she teases.

“Sorry, we’re late.”

Beca looks up once more and her heart stops entirely. If 16-year-old Beca Mitchell found Chloe Beale to be the most beautiful human being to ever walk this earth, she would not be prepared for 31-year-old Chloe Beale stepping out from behind Aubrey in a pair of sapphire pumps and a flowing white shirt-dress, belted at the waist. She takes off her sunglasses and fixes those crystal blue eyes onto Beca. Pink lips part—they were expecting each other, but it’s still a surprise when the attraction hits like an ice-cold deluge. As if no time has passed at all.

“It’s been a while,” Chloe says as she sits down beside her. She leans toward Beca and smiles. She smells just as wonderful as she remembered. “You look good.”

Beca swallows her nerves and forces a smile like the old friends they are. “You too.”

There’s a sparkling sapphire ring on her index finger—Beca doesn’t know what it means, but she can’t stop looking at it out of the corner of her eye. Can’t stop remembering her alexandrite, and she wonders now, sitting so close to her once more, where they would be if she just had the courage to give it to her.

-

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**Chloe**

The wedding reception is massive, and Chloe finds sanctuary in a small, secret garden, far away from the noise. She sits now on a stone bench with her heels beside her, only slightly guilty for leaving Aubrey behind to fend off her and Stacie’s extended family, friends, and important so-and-sos affiliated with her firm. She gazes on at the fountain before her, dry and cracked and flaked with moss—beautiful in its own way—and sighs.

The engagement had been a shock—she wasn’t even aware they knew one another back at Barden—but the more she saw them together, the more it made sense. Stacie is charming and free-spirited, with enough savvy to win over even Aubrey’s conservative Southern family. They push through their differences—bask in them even—far beyond the threshold of fiery passion. They colour each other’s world, nurture each other’s growth, and most importantly, they let love lead the way.

Love. Not fear.

Chloe sighs once more as she twists the sapphire ring around her finger. Once upon a time, she’d read that the index finger represents individual strength. She’d spent years afraid to stand on her own, dragging herself through one bad relationship after another in the hopes of latching on and growing something out of it. She believed, over time, that it could even be possible to love again, even if she spent years looking for it in all the wrong people.

Ever since she began her veterinary training, she’s been thinking of adopting a dog to fill in the precious little space her heart still offered.

That was, of course, until she laid eyes on Beca again.

God, Beca is so beautiful tonight in navy, and so alive when she performed for the ecstatic crowd. Chloe envied the easy half-smile she gave her fans when they asked her for pictures—a smile that, one upon a time, had belonged to her alone. 

Years now, after they so quietly broke each other’s heart, she isn’t entitled to any of it. She knows, even if it doesn’t make her want it less. She looks up at the starry skies now and thinks back to Saint Petersburg.

So young, so fearful, and so naïve.

So weak and so unwilling to trust in the strength Beca gave her.

She should’ve said it.

Goddammit, she should’ve said it. There were a million opportunities at least.

“Room for one more?”

Chloe turns in surprise. “Beca.”

Beca sits down next to Chloe’s heels and drops her own on the ground. She looks every inch as exhausted as Chloe feels, and still she wants to run her fingers across the muted moonlight across her porcelain skin. Instead, she fiddles with her ring and drops her eyes.

She doesn’t know what to say, or how to hold herself after years apart. She doesn’t know what she is allowed to hope for.

“Your ring,” Beca says into the silence, “it’s beautiful.”

Chloe blushes. A part of her wonders if this is Beca’s way of asking if she’s single—this part is delighted. A bigger part of her, however, is embarrassed at the truth—this part is twenty years old again, the vapours of fear descending like circling vultures.

Then again, she’s already lost Beca twice.

She lets the butterflies out alongside the first half of the truth: “I bought this for myself a few years ago,” she tells Beca. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and wistfully stares ahead at a yellow flower growing out of a crack in the abandoned fountain. “I broke up with a girl around Christmas. We’d been living together back in Portland, and she cheated on me, so I cheated on our rent, bought this ring, and left the city altogether.” She sucks up the courage to give Beca a smile. “Best decision I’ve ever made.”

“Badass,” Beca says with a small smile.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“It goes well with your eyes.”

“That’s funny.” Chloe meets Beca’s gaze. She swallows the nerves and sinks into the rhythm of her heartbeat in her ears. “I bought this because it reminded me of yours.”

Beca tilts her head, a rosy pink dusting her cheeks. “Mine?”

“Sorry,” Chloe chuckles nervously, “I know it’s been…I just…I guess a lot of who I am today is because of you and what we had. I don’t know if that’s exactly what I mean—I mean I see you all over magazine covers and—and I want to be—I try to be—you’re—oh god,” she groans and buries her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. You’ve always given me strength, Beca. That’s all I meant.”

Beca doesn’t speak for a while. Her eyes turn up to the sky, as if in prayer, and when Chloe looks up, she is captivated by her beauty once more.

Finally, her voice sweeps across the breeze, soft but heavy with meaning when she drops the words into Chloe’s heart. “I missed you, Chloe.”

Chloe softens. “I missed you too.”

“Sometimes I regret how it ended,” Beca continues quietly. “I feel like maybe…maybe we could’ve done more—maybe _I_ could’ve done more. We could've...made it work. Maybe."

“Don’t,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “I regret a _lot_ of things I did, but I don’t regret letting you go to LA. We were twenty-one, Beca, we…weren’t ready for all of this. At least, I wasn’t.”

A pause. 

A rustle in the hedges around them. 

“What about now?”

Their eyes meet once more. The question surprises them both. But Beca relaxes, a resigned smile on her face when she runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve been in love with you for fifteen years, Chloe. And I thought…even all those years ago in Saint Petersburg I thought…” she drops her gaze to her bare feet in the grass. “It’s only ever been you.”

“Beca, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Beca blurts, letting out a frustrated breath, “we don't see each other for ten years and this is what my dumbass brain—”

Chloe knocks her heels to the floor when she lunges toward Beca and wraps her arms up in a hug. Bare arms brush her bare back, and Beca sighs against her as if they’ve both come home after a long journey. “I love you, Beca. I’ve always loved you—you weren’t wrong, I was just so, so, so scared. I regret not saying it in Saint Petersburg every day.” She pulls away, her thumb brushing away a silent trail of tears on Beca’s face. “I can’t promise you I’m ready to jump in—I can’t promise I can be the person you need, Beca. The last ten years…we’ve both changed a lot…but I knew the moment I saw you again that the love—everything I feel about you—nothing has changed. All I can promise you is that I want to try. Would that…be okay?”

Beca nods, her blue eyes alight with the reflection of her own when she leans in and kisses her once more. Chloe sighs, shrugging off the weight of the last ten years in Beca’s arms.

**Beca**

A year later, Beca finds the velvet box among her old things.

She takes the next flight back to Boston from her mother’s house in Georgia, a quick visit after a quicker trip to LA to complete a contract. In less than five hours, she’s racing up the steps of her and Chloe’s shared townhouse.

Chloe is still at work, and she paces anxiously across her living room floor, the ring burning in her pocket while she waited.

When the front door opens, Chloe drops her bag with a yelp when Beca stands breathless before her.

Standing in the doorway of their home, love and adrenaline course through Beca’s veins when she whispers Chloe’s name.

Every part of her thrums when she hears Chloe gasp, hears her breathe yes before the question is asked.

Sixteen years of love pour over, lingering in every space between when she drops down to one knee and opens the velvet box for one last time. 


	2. Stacie and Aubrey

**Stacie**

The first time she met Aubrey was in a cramped single bed, surrounded by boxes of her things. She woke up on her very first Sunday morning at Barden with a raging hangover, a naked blonde drooling between her bare breasts, and absolutely no memory of how they got there in the first place. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and Stacie didn’t think much of it as she kneaded her eyes with a thumb and forefinger. She waited for the blonde to move as she tried to recall anything at all about the party last night. She was no stranger to these affairs—having snuck out to local college parties since she was sixteen, they all looked and smelled the same after awhile. When she finally heard a groan, she expected another pretty stranger. She didn’t expect, when the stranger lifted her head, ran a hand through her hair, and met her eyes, to have her breath stolen away in the dim light. The stranger’s movements stilled. Eventually, she shook her head, cursing softly under her breath as she climbed off Stacie and stood naked in the middle of her dorm room. Stacie stared openly, her jaw hanging slightly the way one would when they walked into the Sistine Chapel for the first time. And for days, this morning would indeed feel like a religious experience as she turned the beauty of this stranger over and over in her mind. The way she stood, back straight and indomitable, like a queen standing over her kingdom; the way she walked the short length of her room with a kind of languid grace that captivated her, like a masterpiece in movement. She left without a word, and for the first time in a long time, Stacie wished she’d been sober last night. Just sober enough to remember what it must’ve been like to touch something so beautiful, because surely, even the most vivid imagination fell short.

-

-

-

**Aubrey**

The first time Aubrey remembered meeting Stacie was on the fifth floor of the campus library. Almost nobody went up to the fifth floor, filled with dated books nobody needed, which made it her perfect sanctuary. Nearly every day, she booked a small conference room online, as per protocol. Calling it a conference room was a stretch, considering it was little more than six desks put together in rectangular fashion. She would set her venti non-fat vanilla latte on the right-most corner of her favourite desk, then take her time in laying out her laptop, notebook, textbooks, and pencil case. Once everything was in place, she’d admire the symmetry of her work, and spend hours lost in her work. One particular day, however, she arrived to find the door slightly ajar. Hushed, giggling voices floated out from beyond it, and her heart hammered as she felt the pressure of rage start to gather. She didn’t bother knocking when she burst into the room. A tall brunette stood between the legs of a girl sitting on a desk— _her_ desk. The girl on the desk had a mess of dark, curly hair, and a half-open shirt. She told them to get out, and for a moment, two sets of eyes only stared back in shock. Then, the girl on the desk flushed brightly, even through her darker complexion, straightened her shirt, and hurried out the door. The brunette looked like she wanted to call after her, but her brows furrowed like she didn’t know her name. Aubrey rolled her eyes. She crossed her arms and waited for the girl to leave, but to her absolute confusion, she only smirked. “I know you,” she said. She hadn’t been able to forget her, she elaborated. Aubrey frowned, because surely she was mistaken. Slimy womanizers weren’t exactly a part of her multi-levelled, multi-step master plan, and she told her as such. The stranger laughed, grating every nerve, and asked for her name. She gritted her teeth and kindly told her to get the fuck out.

-

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**Stacie**

Stacie learned Aubrey’s name from the monogrammed notebook she kept beside her laptop at all times. Since discovering her sanctuary two weeks after waking up on that glorious Sunday morning, she’d been lit with renewed fascination. The less Aubrey said to her, the more she wanted to know. She was sure Aubrey didn’t remember that night—or that morning, for that matter—nor did she seem the type to end up in strangers’ beds when she couldn’t even stand being six feet away from a stranger in her workspace. At first, she began barging into Aubrey’s space just to see how angry and flustered that beautiful face could get. After all, Stacie didn’t like the chase—she hated games; hated seeking out love that wasn’t freely given already. This wasn’t that, she told herself, even when things started to change. When the teasing didn’t feel like enough, she began bringing her own work alongside two cups of coffee—venti non-fat vanilla lattes, as she remembered from Aubrey’s cup. Aubrey didn’t touch her coffee, refusing to accept gifts from her in any shape or form. This, given how they’d found each other, Stacie understood, though she wasn’t ashamed. She drank the forty ounces of coffee on that first day. When Aubrey watched her do it on the second, she snatched the cup out of her hand, telling her she was going to kill herself, and drank the rest. It _still_ wasn’t love, wasn’t any kind of passionate pursuit—she insisted she wanted nothing from Aubrey—when she started turning parties and free love down. It was just fascination, a sign of getting a little older perhaps when everything suddenly felt so trite, especially considering the multifaceted, endlessly evolving magnetism of Aubrey alone. It was just a little hiatus, she told herself, a harmless, little crush she had to see play out. 

-

-

**Aubrey**

Aubrey was staring blankly across the table where her persistent guest sat when she suddenly remembered where she’d met Stacie before. It was mid-October, and she hadn’t even been aware of the gap in her memory until this very moment. Unwelcome images hit her out of nowhere, flashes of bright lights and bare skin, of her heavy brain, drenched in alcohol, and red lips between her teeth. She remembered waking up, stunned at the sight of those expressive green eyes. Unpleasant heat filled her body when she recalled the first words Stacie had spoken to her. Her fingers stilled on her laptop. This woman had waltzed into her Eden and trampled all over her sanctuary, and just when she was starting to forgive her, just when she started to almost look forward to that easy grin and obnoxious yet consistent presence, her memory reminded her that nothing good could come from a woman like Stacie, a woman whose beauty and charm were always meant to be shared with the world. She could never be held between two palms, could never be caged into one heart. Slowly, Aubrey collected her things and avoided her eyes. Then, without a word, she left.

-

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**Stacie**

Stacie didn’t return to the fifth floor. It was a strange feeling, to be hurt by a woman whom she spent less than two weeks barely speaking to. And yet, there had been something inexplicably different about Aubrey, something she would never understand now as she fell back into old habits. Stacie met Beca in a dark, dingy basement of some fraternity. She’d captured her attention behind all the equipment, silently holding up the party with her expertly curated beats, and she’d made her way toward her. The way Beca glowered at her when she came close, she wondered if she would be her next obsession. They made out against the side of the building, but a different set of eyes were emblazoned behind her eyelids, and it was Aubrey’s name on the edge of her tongue when she sighed into Beca. Perhaps Beca felt it too when she pushed her away, but when she opened her eyes, she saw the faraway look on Beca’s face—her mind, too, was somewhere else. Beca leaned her head back against the wall, beautiful in her own right against the moonlight, and asked if she wanted to get something to eat. They talked over greasy fast-food burgers at 4 AM. Against the backdrop of the still night and the silent ghosts of unrequited love, a friendship was forged.

-

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**Aubrey**

She saw Stacie a dozen more times before the end of the year. She never cared for heavy drinking, never cared to have her senses dulled and shredded or to have her instinct triumph over reason. It baffled her to have woken up next to a stranger like that, way back in September. Perhaps she was simply wide-eyed and eager to enjoy the hedonistic pleasures of college the way Chloe did so incessantly. She’d seen Stacie pressed up over dozen people while she sipped her drinks and watched over Chloe. There would always be somebody on her arm, sometimes two or even three. Sometimes, their eyes would meet, Stacie would smile, and Aubrey would curse her traitorous heart for skipping a beat. It was a relief when Chloe pulled herself together, toned the partying down to twice a month rather than four times a week. It was getting to the point where she couldn’t keep up, where she had to let Chloe go on her own, then end up stewing in her guilt the next day when she’d call her and tell her she was lost in some strange neighbourhood. Her heart broke for Chloe when she cried against her shoulder on the day the news of her academic probation came. She’d been an excellent student for so long—Aubrey had seen it with her own eyes in their first class together, but the mindless sex and the drinking had become a far more enticing escape than the works of Pushkin and Tolstoy. She’d always assumed Chloe simply enjoyed drinking, dancing, and living in a way Aubrey had never been able to comprehend. Until Chloe tugged at her shirt and buried her face in her chest and begged her not to let Beca hurt her anymore. She didn’t know who Beca was, but she kissed her head and promised her she’d try. Love is cursed—she’d seen it again and again. As she ran her hand down Chloe’s hair, she vowed once more that she was never going to let herself walk down this same road.

-

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**Stacie**

Love is courage—she’d seen it again and again. As she watched Beca spring across the table and take the bewildered redhead by the hand, that statement never rang truer. She’d never seen this side of her. She’d never seen the immense strength it took to let love guide her instincts in anybody before. One glance between them and she knew this beautiful, auburn-haired woman was Beca’s lost love, the ghost neither spoke of. And beside her, mirroring the shock in her own eyes, was her own ghost: her own lost love, snuffed out before it could take on its name. Aubrey tore her eyes from Stacie’s, her expression dark as she watched the way Beca absently stroked the redhead’s hand with painful familiarity. When she looked like she wanted to say something, to dispel the force driving their reunion, Stacie reached across the table and grabbed her by the wrist. Aubrey shot her a glare that sent a shiver down her spine—she held on. “Don’t you dare.” Aubrey broke her grip with a swift tug, but she didn’t move and didn’t meet her eyes. She simply turned back to her friend—or were they more than friends?—and worried her lip. She didn’t like this, that much was clear when Stacie studied her profile in the sun. She wouldn’t know how much Aubrey didn’t like this until she’d cornered her outside her dorm two weeks later. She’d marched up to her and jabbed her in the shoulder, telling her and her friends to back off Chloe. Between the confusion and the instant spike of desire, amplified by Aubrey’s furious eyes so close to her own, tense moments passed before her brain could connect the name to the redhead from the Activities Fair. She owed Aubrey nothing, and she told her as much. As she began to walk away, Aubrey caught her by the arm. “I won’t let her hurt Chloe,” she said. “Tell me what will it take.” Stacie said nothing. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t stop a hurricane with her bare hands if she tried. And she’d seen the way Beca looked and Chloe, had recognized the hope, even if she didn’t understand it herself—what they had was bigger than a hurricane, and they were as helpless as she was. She knew this, but she said nothing still. Instead, she half-jokingly bargained for a kiss. Aubrey pursed her lips: “Meet me on the fifth floor.”

-

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**Aubrey**

She’d known since the moment she saw the look on Chloe’s face that protecting her from Beca would be a lost cause. But her stomach churned at the thought of picking Chloe up from beer-stained floors and strange men’s beds every few days. She’d work too hard for too long to lose everything all over again, and she didn’t trust the eyeliner and the ear monstrosities to keep Chloe steady. In eleven months, she would be on her way to Saint Petersburg. Twelve months after that and the world was her oyster. She had no use for a wanna be DJ and her alternative flair. She knew this much, even if she was helpless to stop it. Stacie was already in the room when she arrived, leaning on her desk— _her_ desk—casually as she thumbed through her phone. The sight of her long legs and chestnut curls still stirred up sensations she was never going to get used to. She squared her shoulders and hardened her gaze. It was a dangerous game she was playing with a woman like Stacie—a game fuelled by less concern and more intrigue over Stacie’s half-hearted request. As much as she wanted the reassurance, she wasn’t proud of using Chloe as an excuse. Hell, she wasn’t proud of her curiosity in the first place, or the taunting snippets of rubbed out memories of a September long ago. If she gave herself a moment out of her neuroses to think, to stop and lift the truth out from within with both hands and hold it up to her face, she might admit that underneath the veneer, she was drowning under the weight of her own expectations. The incessant worrying tearing through her, while Harvard loomed on the horizon like weighted shackles around her ankles—all of this, with the fear of her father’s disappointment holding her head down. There was no room to breathe in the master plan, much less room for Stacie and all that she represented. But maybe above all of this, she was just really, really fucking lonely. So, when Stacie looked up from her phone and smiled, Aubrey crossed the room and kissed her hard. For one glorious moment, she allowed herself to fall into her senses, pushing aside everything else. Chloe, Beca, Harvard, and her father—none of it mattered when Stacie responded with a hand in her hair, pulling her in deeper and deeper. It was a different kind of drowning, one with warm waters churning above cracking fissures of heat below the surface. She tore open Stacie’s blouse. “I can’t come between Beca and Chloe,” Stacie said breathlessly. “Not even for this.” But Aubrey didn’t care. Everything, everything was reaching a breaking point, and she needed, needed to regain control.

-

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**Stacie**

Their rendezvous on the fifth floor wouldn’t be the last time. They began to meet once every two or three months at first. Each time Aubrey summoned her, her head and heart would fill with giddy anticipation. She knew what she meant to her, knew she shouldn’t be dreaming of anything more, but she couldn’t help herself between those cold months. Despite the thrill of being shoved onto a desk or brought to her knees, of nails against her back and the salt of passion against her tongue, she dreamt of lazy Sunday mornings that take her back to September, just taking each other in and letting the sun warm their faces. She dreamt of holding her close just because she missed her, of making love in front of a fireplace in a wintery cabin somewhere. She’d wondered if Aubrey knew how often she starred in her dreams when she stopped kissing her, as if the slightest notion that they could be anything more than hapless, lonely strangers couldn’t be tolerated. Things changed after Chloe left. Aubrey practically lived on the fifth floor. It was hard not to notice the LSAT materials, practice tests sandwiched between neatly tabbed textbooks, loose sheets of paper and creased notebooks—all scattered across the room. The calls became increasingly frequent, and Aubrey herself became increasingly worn. She was always wound up tight, the pressure around her packed so densely she didn’t know how Aubrey didn’t shatter the windows when she walked by. Twice a week, Stacie became her escape, the void she could scream into, the shoulder she could cry on. They never spoke—never pretended they could be anything more, but twice a week at least, Stacie was allowed to love.

-

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**Aubrey**

She lifted her head from her book when she heard the soft vibration of her phone. She opened Chloe’s message to see a picture of her and Beca, smiling in front of Hermitage. They’re so in love, she thought. She rubbed her tired eyes and put her phone down. Didn’t they know that nothing came without a cost? Especially love. It was a simple fact of life. Even if her horrifyingly naïve heart flashed a memory of green eyes that suggested otherwise.

-

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**Stacie**

She was standing in Beca’s bedroom, watching her unpack and eagerly awaiting stories of her trip to Saint Petersburg, when Beca shoved a velvet ring box into her hand. Her stomach dropped at the weight of it, and twisted at the sight of Beca’s watery eyes. “I was such a fucking idiot,” she whispered. “Take it. Sell it. Get it as far away from me as you can.” Beca told her the story of Chloe that night over a bottle of vodka she bought in Russia, knowing what was to come. She learned of their whirlwind romance in high school, the two and a half years of longing in between, and the three months it took for Beca to buy this ring after the universe reunited them once more. Later, as she pulled the blanket over her friend’s flushed, sleeping form, and eased the empty bottle out of her hand, she would wonder how on earth anyone could love for so long despite everything it cost. She wondered if fate could ever love her the same way it loved Beca, because in spite it all, a chance to love is better than none. As she held the velvet box in her hand, she thought of Aubrey, a woman she had no reason to love, yet did so anyway against everyone’s wishes, including the universe and her own. She placed the box on the bedside table with a scrawled note underneath: “If you love her, you’ll regret giving this away.” Later that same night, Aubrey sent her a text a three in the morning. “Fifth floor” is all it ever said, and still her heart raced. This time, she stared blankly at the shape of her name on her screen, The pointed edge of the A, the rounded letters and the ups and downs of the rest. If you love her, her heart whispered, you’ll regret giving me away. With a strength she didn’t know she had, she turned off her phone and went to bed, only to lay there until the sun hung high in the sky, dreaming of a September past.

-

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**Aubrey**

She never saw Stacie again at Barden. Perhaps she’d gone too far or been too curt, but she thought it was an agreement that went both ways, loneliness exchanged at no cost. She’d expected Stacie to tire of her eventually, but as difficult as she was, it was as if their bodies were made for each other—this, she thought, surely deserved some sort of goodbye. It hurt more than it should for something that should’ve meant nothing. She hadn’t been left alone with her own emptiness for so long, even the silence on the fifth floor felt oppressively loud. But one glance at the corner of her practice test told her she had neither time nor energy to dwell on her stubbornly aching heart. The red number she had marked there, had circled angrily with her red pen, reminded her that she wasn’t nearly good enough for Harvard Law. She was starting to think she would never be good enough. For anybody.

-

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**Stacie**

Massachusetts was cold when she arrived in late December. Colder still with the guilt of leaving Beca behind so soon. But when she left, things seemed good: Beca was passing her classes and getting all the right attention for her music. Chloe stuck around, and she seemed happy. There was nothing else keeping her in Barden when MIT called for the second time. She’d finished her credits almost a year early, sticking around only to keep an eye on Beca and—god, she would laugh if it hurt so much when she remembered how much she foolishly wanted Aubrey to be the reason she stayed. She’d plan to continue assisting her professors and to continue publishing her own research, even if the academic world didn’t quite take her seriously enough to offer money in it—that would come later. She’d dreamt about her last year at Barden, with all the time in the world to be young and free. When she no longer knew what that entailed, she moved on. Here, endless opportunities await. A new life—a new chance to love again. And for the first few months, that was exactly what she did. Crossing the bridge every weekend to Boston was a thrill, a much-needed escape from the intensity of the week. Free love flowed through her veins like a familiar drug—no strings, no heartaches. Other than the occasional call from Beca, it was easy to let Barden fade away. In fact, she welcomed the relief when she finally allowed memories of _her_ to conflate into one. It was easier to erase when she didn’t have to pull her emotions apart. Easier to resent if she couldn’t remember the moments in between where she allowed herself the illusion of feeling so utterly full and so completely loved. So, of course, she didn’t expect to see the green eyes from her dreams staring at her from across the room four months later, miles and miles away in Boston where her new life was supposed to begin. And she certainly didn’t expect the force of all those memories to knock the air out of her lungs. Not after all this time.

-

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**Aubrey**

It was early-April when she arrived at her new life in Harvard. Even the air tasted a little sweeter out here when she breathed it in. She called Chloe every day in the hopes of enticing her out here to mend her broken heart—it was the only way she knew how to assuage the guilt of letting her down. She was never going to forgive Beca for giving up on her again—every time she saw her face in a magazine, she wanted to cut it out and throw a knife into it for all that she’d put Chloe through. She didn’t, of course, because a part of her knew that Chloe wasn’t blameless, and a part of her—buried deep within the weeds of everything she refused to face—knew who this misplaced anger was really for. She’d waited all this time for closure to come. Out here in Boston, she was sure she could finally leave Barden behind and move onto far more important things, like impressing her professors and mentorship programs and finding the right study groups and making the right friends and the list went on. None of her plans involved seeing Stacie again in a dimly lit bar downtown, standing alone, lips parted in surprise. None of her plans involved cutting through the crowd toward her with nothing but white noise in her head. Then Stacie smiled, and shook her hand like they were meeting for the first time, taking with her all the anger and resentment she’d harboured so long. She offered to buy Aubrey a drink for old time’s sake and start all over again—she said yes before she could finish the question. It was the first time they’d really spoken at length, the first time they really got to know each other at a respectful distance. Stacie was charming and funny—anybody who’ve ever come within six feet of her knew this—but few who’ve been in her bed knew of her intellectual prowess, of the waves she made even before she’d completed her honour’s degree in engineering. MIT scouted her out a year ago—she didn’t dare think about why she’d stayed at Barden. And she spoke of all of this so casually, unaware of how extraordinary she was. Not for the first time, Aubrey wondered what they could’ve been had she not judged her so hastily.

-

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**Stacie**

By next April, they moved into a small apartment, equal distance between Harvard and MIT. From two lonely strangers in a new city, an unexpected friendship blossomed. It began with a few more drinks, griping over new classmates, professors, and expectations and reminiscing about Barden. From drinks, the habit of sharing became so impulsive that they began texting and calling. Neither spoke about the history embedded in those logs, and over time, it felt wrong to bring it up. Aubrey was no longer just a beautiful enigma who did unspeakable things to her heart. She was flesh and blood, a fixture in her life; one who reveled in her joy, soothed her in her sadness. She knew her heart would be in trouble, but it happened so quickly, so easily, so organically that she couldn’t say no. As they grew closer, as they spent more and more time together, it became harder and harder to delineate the past from present. It became harder to ignore how much harder she was falling for her, and how much more it was going to hurt when these feelings would inevitably tear them apart. 

-

**Aubrey**

They’d been living together for three months when things start to feel different. She’d noticed it before, but since they’d moved into a small two-bedroom and spent nearly every morning together in their small kitchen and nearly every evening together quietly studying at the same square dining table, it was becoming more and more frequent. The way Stacie looked at her from across the table when she cut into her eggs in the morning, or the way Stacie glanced up from her laptop, studying her while she thought she wasn’t paying attention—their friendship was changing, growing more intimate by the day. They never talked about their history, and she assumed they never would, and it almost made her angry to see Stacie wear her emotions so clearly on her face. Because she knew that look—she recognized it from all the times she’d seen it in the fifth-floor conference room, from all the times she’d replayed it in her memories, wondering how many other people she looked at in the same way. She hated how much her heart raced at the thought of them becoming something more, how much she wanted to believe there was something in that steady gaze she could claim to be hers, but they’d come so far as friends. She was her anchor and her confidant, and she needed her far too much to let these feelings tear them apart. More than that, if she were to make partner before she turned thirty, she _couldn’t_ let these feelings get in the way. She suggested a third roommate in their small apartment—someone to diffuse the tension and stop this runaway train. She pretended not to see the hurt in Stacie’s eyes, pretended not to care about the _many_ roommates that would walk in and out of that space like a series of endlessly revolving doors. She told herself that she was just following her master plan when she started staying a little later in the library, and that it didn’t tear her apart every morning she saw someone new in Stacie’s clothes. Stacie would always belong to the world, but this way, at least, she would still have her friendship.

-

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**Stacie**

At the end of September, Stacie moved in with two of her classmates. It was a little closer to school, she reasoned weakly—a whole three minutes closer. The truth was she couldn’t stand the silence in her old apartment, and she was tired—so tired—of playing at love with all of these strangers when the woman she couldn’t forget slept in the room beside her. The longer she stayed, the faster she was pushing Aubrey away. She didn’t want to lose her, but she couldn’t get her out of her mind. Stacie suggested the distance, and Aubrey didn’t stop her. Perhaps she too felt the way her feelings snaked around their friendship like a noose, slowly, slowly squeezing out every breath until it hung between them, a limp reminder of who they were and what they had. Who they could’ve been and what they could’ve had.

-

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**Aubrey**

Five years came and went, passing each other by like clock hands lingering a minute at a time. In time, Stacie became little more than a memory she pulled out on wistful rainy days, a what-if soaked in fondness and regret. There were days, when reality gave her room to breathe, she missed her smile, her humour, and the comfort of her arms, but those days were few and far between when the universe made different plans for her. Aubrey found herself back in Virginia when her father suddenly fell ill. She spent six months nursing him back to health. For those six months, she took up a job far below her pay grade at a local notary’s office while her mother sipped margaritas in Cancun with her new husband. While in Virginia, she briefly dated a local attorney. She was beautiful, solid, steady, ambitious, and smart. She was smitten with Aubrey, and for a while, she was just the kind of person Aubrey could see herself marrying. She was everything Stacie wasn’t, but once the sparkle of a new relationship wore off, Aubrey found her incredibly boring. Even their break-up lacked the passion she came to expect, and she wondered how long she was going to let her history with Stacie define her relationships. When she returned to Boston, Chloe had shown up at her doorstep in tears. She’d exhausted her options in Portland and, lost and alone at twenty-nine with only the remaining shards of her broken heart, she didn’t know what else to do. So, she dragged Chloe up to her feet, fixed her a hot meal, and sat her down with a plan. Over the course of the last five years, she and two colleagues had been dreaming of opening their own firm. Over the last two years, dreams became plans, and plans turned into action. Finally, with a little bit of experience under their belt and more courage than she’d ever had in her life, they bought an office space in downtown Boston, a sparkling new building that was due to finish construction in six more months. She asked whether Chloe wanted to help her out while she figured everything else out. Ecstatic at the opportunity to be in each other’s lives once more, Chloe jumped in. With her best friend by her side and her career within her grasp, finally, she saw the light at the end of a dreary year. Finally, she breathed, life couldn’t get sweeter than this.

-

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**Stacie**

It was a warm morning in September when Stacie walked into the empty office building. It was her day off, but she couldn’t resist seeing how her ideas were taking shape. She stood in the foyer with her hands on her hips, taking in a deep breath of sweet air and admiring the ventilation system she’d designed. When she heard her name, she turned. Her entire world fell out from under her at the sight of those familiar green eyes. It had been years—she was as gorgeous ever in her blazer and pants combo that she was always so fond of. “My god,” she whispered, not to the shock of seeing her again, but to the familiar tidal wave of desire that took her back to that September so, so long ago. Unable to help herself, she swept Aubrey up in a hug like the old friends they were. Except she didn’t let go, and the hug turned into an embrace as she sighed against her like the old lovers they never were. She took in her familiar scent, laced with a perfume she didn’t recognize, took in the soft curves of her body pressed against her own the way it did a decade ago. She closed her eyes, knowing she was treading in dangerous waters, as she begged the universe to let her have this one last moment. One last moment before she let go, put on her best smile, pushed her love aside, and faced her friend. “I missed you,” Aubrey murmured, her breath tickling her ear as she squeezed her closer. Stacie’s breath hitched, her heart hammering at the soft tones of those three words and the worlds contained within them. Absently, she kissed her hair and whispered, “I missed you too.”

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**Aubrey**

When she’d made the decision to drop in on the new office building that morning, she didn’t expect it to forever alter the course of her life. When she felt Stacie’s lips against her hair, she didn’t expect the spark to reignite so quickly.

“Are you busy today?” Stacie asked, holding her hand with that same look in her eyes. She shook her head; Stacie grinned.

After all these years, it was as if nothing had changed, and when she took her down to the boardwalk, fingers still laced in her own, she wondered if that look had belonged to her all along. She tightened her fingers around Stacie’s. She was mid-sentence, telling her about a mutual friend she’d run into weeks ago, nervous energy flowing off her in waves, when she turned to Aubrey and looked down at her joined hands. It was still early morning on the boardwalk, mostly quiet except for faraway footsteps and boats bobbing on the water. In the distance, a lone gull cried. Stacie’s gaze flicked to her lips, then up to her eyes—her heart thumped in anticipation. It’d been so long since she’d felt those lips against her own. She licked them absently, wondering if they might be chapped. But Stacie still hadn’t moved, and she thought, for one horrifying moment, that she’d completely misjudged the situation.

Finally, Stacie looked out at the water behind her, unable to meet her eyes. “Can I kiss you?” she asked shyly. She’d never known her to be shy, never known her not to simply take what she wanted, but her quiet voice hugged her, tugging her closer toward her. She reached up with her free hand and touched her jaw. The simple gesture was exactly the kind of intimacy she’d feared so many years ago, but in this moment she could not recall why. It was so instinctively easy when Stacie looked at her like she was the center of her world.

She pushed up to the balls of her feet, meeting her halfway in a kiss so unlike any they’d ever shared. It was slow and sweet, a fine balance of fiery passion sieved through time. Kissing Stacie had never felt so important, so monumental in the course of their past, present, and future.

Breathlessly, Stacie pressed her forehead against her own. “I can’t do this,” she sighed—Aubrey’s stomach sank—“I can’t just be your warm body or your friend. I can’t kiss you and pretend I haven’t loved you all this time. But I…don’t want the distance anymore. What do I do?” She lifted her head and pulled her hand to her heart, where Aubrey felt the rapid pulse in time with her own. Her green eyes swam as they bore into her own. “Tell me what I should do.”

“I don’t know,” Aubrey admitted. All this time, she’d hoped, but she didn’t dare. All this time, she’d been blindly pushing her into the world, unable to see her at her doorstep, waiting to be let in. “All this time,” she whispered under her breath.

“You must’ve known. Some part of you must’ve known.”

One upon a September morning, she’d woken up in a stranger’s arms and peered into her eyes. She’d seen the wonder in them, felt their awe all along her skin. She’d seen it again and again, but she never let her gaze linger. She was afraid to see the awe and wonder in her own reflection, afraid she’d have to admit the truth. But she saw it now in Stacie’s plea—a decade of emotion leaking through the cracks in the dam she’d so painstakingly built.

Perhaps she’d always known, but she needed time.

She needed to take down the dam that had protected her for so long, to dig up the weeds of her past, to reconcile all the Stacies she was too scared to love with the one standing before her now. More than that, she needed to prove she was worth the waiting and the heartache, and she needed Stacie to prove this wasn’t too good to be true.

Despite all of this, she grabbed her by the lapels of her jacket and kissed her once more. “I can’t say it right now,” she told her, “but please don’t give up on me.”

**Stacie**

It was Christmas Day in Virginia, three months after their reunion. Though they’d only been together for three months, it felt like there had never been a time when they'd ever been apart.

They’d spent Thanksgiving with her parents in their new Rhode Island home, where for the first time ever, she didn’t come alone. The family gossip mill would churn, as if she weren’t already dreading how close her parents had moved, knowing all the unexpected visits they were bound to make. But Aubrey didn’t seem to mind, and there was a certain thrill to seeing Aubrey move so seamlessly among everyone else. She was so patient with her mother’s endless stories about people nobody else seemed to know, so kind when she laughed along to her father’s terrible math jokes, and so gracious when her seventeen-year-old sister piled her worries about college onto her plate alongside the mashed potato and green beans. Even her extended family didn’t seem to phase her. She remembered Aubrey asleep against her in the den while they winded down over glasses of wine after her aunts, uncles, and cousins had left. Her mother had leaned over and whispered how much she liked Aubrey, while her sister lightly punched her in the shoulder and told her not to fuck this up, earning herself a stern reprimand from her father across the room. Everything inside her glowed with warmth that night.

Virginia was a little different. Where Stacie’s parents’ modest home had been crammed with people over Thanksgiving, Aubrey’s family estate was massive and cold. At dinner, they sat at a long table that could’ve fit Stacie’s entire family and then some. But aside from Aubrey beside her and Aubrey’s father at the head of the table, there was only the nurse employed to her father’s care. A catering company had been hired to bring in a Christmas feast, leaving them with enough food for twenty. Aubrey’s father was a stern man who rarely smiled, opting instead on interrogating Aubrey about her new firm. Stacie didn’t like the way Aubrey retreated within herself, and she certainly didn’t like the way he didn’t seem to notice or care. When Aubrey shot her an apologetic smile, her heart ached.

Finally, he turned to her. “So, you’re an engineer, are you?” He asked, not meeting her eyes as he carefully separated the contents of his plate into four distinct colour-coordinated quarters. She almost laughed when she saw that Aubrey had done the same with the same concentration with which she set up her work space.

“Yes, sir,” she said proudly, “I build things.”

“What sorts of things?”

In retrospect, there were probably a million things she could’ve said, but eager to make Aubrey smile again, she looked him in the eye, grinned, and replied, “First and foremost, a life with your daughter.”

In her peripheral, Aubrey nearly spat out the wine she was in the middle of sipping.

Her father lowered his fork and knife, staring at her for one painfully long moment. She tried not to flinch in spite of the panic bubbling inside.

Beside him, the nurse smothered his laughter with a hand.

Then, her father resumed cutting into his potatoes. “That was funny,” he said in the same monotonous drawl with the barest hint of a smile. Stacie returned Aubrey’s awed expression with a triumphant grin. Perhaps she’d too quickly misjudged her father as cold when he simply wasn't accustomed to expressing his emotions—she understood that feeling all too well when she thought back to her rocky beginnings with Aubrey.

After dinner, they retired to the parlour, where her father insisted on a nightcap while Stacie played them a series of Christmas songs on the beautiful Steinway in the corner. Three songs and her biggest smile later, she managed to entice Aubrey’s father into singing along to Auld Lang Syne. His rich tenor rang as he stood at the center of the room--Stacie glanced up to see Aubrey cover her mouth with her hands, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. His rosy cheeks glowed as his mouth pulled back into a handsome grin to the applause in the room, looking remarkably younger than he had at the beginning of the evening. He thanked Stacie for the life she brought back into this house, then hugged Aubrey, who clung to him tightly until he placed a kiss on top of her head. He wished them both a happy Christmas before retiring upstairs, accompanied by his nurse.

Finally, they were alone.

“Your dad is a remarkable singer,” she said, swinging around in her seat to face her. As Aubrey approached, she pulled her in by the belt loop and looked up into her misty eyes with a smile. She rested one hand on Aubrey's hip and brushed the tears from her cheek with the other. "Happy, babe?" 

Aubrey wrapped her arms around her neck and nodded. 

“I love you,” she whispered.

Stacie leaned into her. She closed her eyes and breathed her in as every part of her sang with relief. 

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! If you've read this far, thank you very much for taking the time to enjoy my work. 
> 
> This story and this style was based on something I did years ago for the Mamamoo fandom. I'd taken "We Had Everything" by Broods and written a story based on a series of vignettes. Everything for PP is brand new, revamped, with the title inspired by a far newer Broods song, and honestly, I enjoyed this story a lot more (though in my opinion "We Had Everything" is the superior Broods song). Maybe being alive a few years longer also helped. 
> 
> Anyway, it's a little different, but I hope it made you at least a little bit emotional as you followed these guys across the decade and a half. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think in the comments. All love is appreciated :)
> 
> P.S. Some extra commentary if you're interested:  
> \- I love these kinds of opportunities just to give myself some practice in crafting better sentences while I'm working on big projects. This story in particular, I just really fell in love with as it started taking shape. It's ultimately a story of life, of flawed human beings, and the idea that sometimes life takes a lot of trial and error.  
> \- The multiple line breaks in between, for me it represents the distance between. Sometimes it doesn't take much to push someone away or pull them closer, and I kind of think that's how it is for any type of relationship.  
> \- The tenses in the two stories are also deliberate. Bechloe's starts earlier, but ends later, thus this story is in present tense. For the purpose of this story, they're all roughly the same age. Bechloe's timeline goes from 16-31, with a large gap in the middle after they graduate at 21. Beca graduates, but doesn't attend her ceremony. Meanwhile, Staubrey's story goes from 18-29, where they're about 24 when they see each other before the time jump. This means they date for about two years before getting married in Bechloe's timeline at 31.  
> -TripAdvisor keeps sending me ads for Saint Petersburg now, and it's a little creepy. I'm pretty sure Google is gonna try to entice me to move to Boston someday too.


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